Month

October 2014

What some might regard as flights of fancy can open whole new worlds if you follow them with honor and respect.

Just as several weeks ago, I was awakened to my own deeper purpose to work with activists on the front lines of environmental sustainability and social justice, I was also recently reawakened to my own path of dreaming and shamanism.

Once again, I am confronted with the possibility that, perhaps, I can only do my deepest and most powerful work when I embrace its duality – in this world with clients and activists and beyond it – in dimensions that cannot be apprehended with the senses.

For a sense of how I live and the guidance which I receive, I offer the following story:

Friday – I am in our local library picking something up for my son. As I stand on line to check out his Pokemon DVD, my attention is caught by a book on a nearby shelf – The Boy Who Died and Came Back. Just recently, I’d remembered an incident in which I almost died and was given the choice to leave my body or come back. Like the boy in the title, I’d also chosen to come back. I grab the book – a memoir by Robert Moss, an author I enjoy and who writes about dreaming.

Saturday – I indulge myself by letting the kids play on the computer all afternoon while I dig into the book. What I read resonates strongly with my own experiences of having left my body at age 20 and the long journey of awakening that followed. Surprisingly, the book also reminds me of my daughter’s life. She also left her body briefly when she was a baby and has continued to be a mysterious and complicated soul.

Sunday – My husband is hosting a community drum event and an old client of mine is there. She asks me “Are you doing a dream circle soon? I really want to come.” The synchronicity with my reading from the day before is uncanny. I tell her I wasn’t thinking of it, but since she asked I agree to put something together.

Monday – I announce I will be holding two dream intensives, one over the phone and one in person. Immediately, I have the three dreamers necessary to confirm the phone class. The in-person registration is more complicated. Despite the fact that it was a Tacoman who requested the class, I surrender to the ease with which the phone class came together and let go of any attachment to the in-person workshop.

Along the way, I do readings for myself and the potential dreamers, continue reading Moss’ book and writing down my own dreams.

While it has often been difficult to classify my work, increasingly I am less concerned with that and more inspired by the many purposes which my work appears to serve. And while I’ve often been concerned about expanding its reach, I’ve come to a place where I am thrilled and honored to contribute to the lives of those who seek me out.

I’m still looking for a few dreamers to join me for six weeks of inner exploration and consciousness expanding adventure. Each week, our small group will gather in sacred space to share dreams and deepen understanding and wisdom from our night time visions.

The format will be simple – the results profound.

If you have a journal full of dreams – or even if you’ve never recorded your dreams before but would like to start – don’t hesitate to contact me for more information at: info@JesicaDavis.com

I’m confident we will gather exactly the right group for this intimate and sacred journey.

Don’t be scared. Your dreams are calling you into a richer relationship with your world and your self.

Even the smallest shard, the faintest color, from a dream can yield entry into other dimensions of yourself and your world.

Dreams are part of our human survival kit, part of what has kept us going, and evolving on this planet. Across history most people have valued dreaming for two reasons beyond all others: because dreams enable us to see into the possible future, and because they put us in touch with sources of knowledge and wisdom beyond the ordinary mind. ― Robert Moss, The Secret History of Dreaming

If you are a dreamer…

you know who you are…

you sense your dreams are telling you something and leading you somewhere…

and you long to share them with your tribe of fellow dreamers for support and illumination…

Dream work has played a significant part in my own journey for many years. If you’d like to join me and a select group of dreamers on a 6-week journey of discovery into your own dream language and landscape, please read on…

Starting on November 5, you – and other dreamers like you – will have the opportunity to join together in a profound exploration.

The format will be deceptively simple. For 2 hours each week, we will gather in sacred space to draw on our deepest intuitions and guide each other through the stories we share from the other side of night.

There are two ways to engage with this process – in person and over the phone.

As part of my recent work with The Pachamama Alliance, I volunteered to write an editorial reconsidering ColumbusDay for some local papers in Tacoma. It was a fun assignment and I enjoyed it, but didn’t think much more about it until this evening when I discovered my Op-Ed in The Tacoma Weekly.

Here is the complete text – co-written with the kind folks at Pachamama. And I am happy to say – even before the publication of this piece, the city of Seattle designated Indigenous People’s Day on the day traditionally reserved for Columbus.

Reconsidering Columbus Day

With Columbus Day approaching, it’s interesting to consider what we learned, and more importantly, what we didn’t learn in school about the holiday and the man. We can all probably still recite the names of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, but what were we taught about the brutal legacy of Columbus’ venture and those that followed?

According to the late historian Howard Zinn, Columbus’ discovery initiated a time of mass killings and commenced an era marked by colonization, the tragic dispossession of native homelands – including those of my Taino ancestors – and a seemingly unending drive toward the accumulation of money and power. While much of our modern lifestyle is possible due to resources acquired this way – and much knowledge has been gained through interaction with other cultures – it’s time to consider the harm that has also been done.

Beyond the historical destruction of our natural world and the devastation of indigenous peoples, we would benefit by looking at the insidious impact these trajectories continue to have on contemporary lives as well. While the excessive development that ensued in the New World celebrated the notion that “more is better,” that belief has kept us all moving at unhealthy speeds to achieve an idea of success characterized by money, power and little else. With both human health and the health of the planet in jeopardy, it may serve us to question what values we celebrate in our modern culture and consider whether there are different values we should cultivate instead at this point in human history – values such as sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. Something else we didn’t learn much about in school was the mutually enhancing relationship indigenous cultures have had with the Earth for millennia – and this may be a lesson we ignore at our peril.

Last month more than 300,000 people gathered in New York for the largest climate march in history. It was a plea to return to a more reverent relationship with the Earth. With Columbus Day approaching, it’s time for a reality check on what we’ve learned, a correction of what we haven’t and the cultivation of a relationship between ourselves and the Earth that’s more in harmony with indigenous wisdom.